


Of Brave Deryn and Her Beloved Prince

by oohmrsharp (selahexanimo)



Category: Leviathan - Scott Westerfeld
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, F/M, Genderbending, Post-Series, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-28
Updated: 2014-07-28
Packaged: 2018-02-10 17:41:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2034132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/selahexanimo/pseuds/oohmrsharp
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seven stories for Deryn Sharp and her prince, written for Dalek Week 2014.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. White Nights

**Author's Note:**

> All fics were originally posted at oohmrsharp.tumblr.com
> 
> Prompt #1: Little Alek and Deryn (childhood). “White nights” refer to sleepless nights and/or nights that do not get properly dark.

On white nights, Alek’s nurse carries him to the window to look at the moon. It is a silver ball above the trees, bright enough to chase away sleep, small enough to fit in the prince’s chubby hand.

"Have you got a hold of it, your Highness?" his nurse murmurs. "Hold it tight! It is a bit of treasure, and you must not let it go."

oOo

Artemis’s white nights are Deryn’s as well. He wakes her up from dreams of flying, and they creep about while Ma sleeps, Deryn’s nightgown tucked into a pair of Jaspert’s trousers, Artemis’s forgotten nightcap perched on his head. The moonlight makes the balloon look strange and glittery; it splashes shadows across the grass like spilled molasses.

When they are high enough that the house and garden have melted into the field below, Artemis cups his palm around the moon. “I’ve found a coin for you, love,” he says. “Come and have a look.” He picks her up, so she’ll be tall enough to reach for it. She pinches it between thumb and forefinger and whispers back, trilling with triumph, “Got it, Da, got it!”

oOo

Eventually, Alek’s nurse stops joining him at the window. She says he is too old to be so sleepless, that he must learn to bear the moonlight.

He waits for her to go away and stands by himself looking out. Even though he is too old to be restless, he is also too small to see the moon above the trees. He must clamber onto the windowsill for that. He pretends he is an adventurer who has finally found a long-sought treasure.

"Do you have it, man?" one of his companions calls. (They are all timid, these imaginary men; the prince is the only one brave enough to dare the climb.)

Alek stretches up and pinches the moon between thumb and forefinger. “I have it!” he says, sharp and victorious, and smiles against the glass.


	2. For Austria

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #2: Genderbend

"Alek—" Dylan begins.

"It’s Sophie." She swallows. "My name is Princess Sophie von Hohenberg. Not… it is not _Alek.”_

Dylan blinks. Sophie looks at her hands. They are clenched and shaking. Her whole body is like a thing possessed, shaking.

"So you’re not—" says Dylan, and there is none of the shock or anger Sophie expects to hear in his voice, nothing but a simple question.

"It’s Sophie," she says again, helplessly.

Her name is an alien and uncanny thing in her mouth, after so many months of passing as the prince of Austria-Hungary. It feels so small, like a child’s frock. It cannot contain her any longer.

But for once — just for  _once_  — she does not want to pass for Aleksandar. Sophie is tired of being the brother who died, tired of replacing him, as if he never existed.

A hot wave of saliva fills her mouth. Always that sick, hot wave when she thinks of him. She does not know how she has hidden from this memory so long.

(Alek, healthy, tearing after her through the rose gardens at Konopiste, the both of them giggling, the chiding voices of their attendants trailing behind them.

Alek, ill, crosslegged on her sickbed with his toy Stormwalkers, finishing their war game even as he flushes with fever and coughs into the sleeve of his nightgown.

Alek, dead. Konopiste so silent, the air swollen with shock, as Sophie lies sweating and feverish, calling for Alek, a nurse, for  _anyone_  to please come.)

But the empire needed Alek more than it needed her. And so, this: the cropped hair. Her brother’s clothes. Alek’s body buried under her name. How charming it had once been, when nurses paraded them about in matching costumes to make their parents smile, the royal twins, not a hair of difference between them. How charming. How crucial. As if God himself had planned this farce.

All for the throne.  _We do this, Sophie, for Austria._

She cannot get her father’s words out of her head, and so she starts to blubber, frantic. “You cannot tell a soul, Dylan, you—” she begins, then realizes how this must sound. The _Leviathan_  is not her airship. Dylan made a vow to his king and country, not to her. “I’m sorry,” she says. She heaves deep breaths, until her heartbeat slows. “You must do as you see fit. I’m sorry.”

"I won’t tell," says Dylan.

She looks at him, and there is something in his face that she does not understand — something more than a promise. A ferocity, as if Sophie’s secret was Dylan’s all along.

"Do you believe me?" Dylan’s voice is tight and fierce. "It’s no one’s business why you’re going about as a boy; if that’s what you need to do, then do it. And know I won’t tell. Not _anyone_.”

He touches one of her shoulders, then both. She rolls onto her knees and leans into his hug.

She tries to thank him, but she has started to cry.

She knows that she can trust him. This is why she told him in the first place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Deryn is transgender in this. I also realize that, technically, Alek isn't genderbent. OH WELL. :P


	3. The Adventures of Brave Deryn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #3: Fairy Tales

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Multiple deaths occur herein, though none are graphic.

There once was girl named Brave Deryn who wished to fly. And so she cut off her hair, traded in her skirts for trousers, and left home. Her mother sobbed mightily, for she feared that Brave Deryn would be killed by wild beasts or godless walking machines. But the girl had no such fear, for her father had taught her how to care for herself. And before he had died, he had given her a knife that would never bend or break. 

Before Brave Deryn had walked very far, a terrible storm thundered up. Brave Deryn took refuge in a grove of trees. When the storm had passed, she discovered that the winds had caught a wild Huxley and tangled its limbs in the trees.

Brave Deryn scampered up the nearest tree and cut the Huxley loose with her knife. The beast lifted its tentacles and gave a stately bow.

"Had you not come along," it said, "I would have perished from starvation. Please take this as an expression of my gratitude." So saying, the Huxley tore off one of its tentacles and presented it to her. "If you ever are in need of help, cast this upon the ground and shout my name, and I will come." Brave Deryn thanked the Huxley, put the tentacle into her knapsack, and bid the creature farewell.

Not long after this, Brave Deryn came upon a murder of crows bedeviling a strafing hawk. The crows had torn off the hawk’s legs, so that it could not cut them with its talons. Brave Deryn rushed into their midst, swinging her knapsack and shouting, but when the crows would not leave, she grabbed the bread and dried meat her mother had given her and flung them into the field. The food proved enough of a distraction, and the crows flew away. 

Brave Deryn saw that the hawk could not be saved, and her heart was heavy with grief. She carried the dying bird to a stream and gave it water, then laid it in the cool grass. The hawk nodded its head in a bow. “Had you not come along,” it said, “I would have perished without dignity. Please take this as an expression of my gratitude.” So saying, the hawk plucked one of its feathers and presented it to her. “If you ever are in need of help, cast this on the ground and shout my name, and my brothers and sisters will come.” Brave Deryn thanked the hawk and put the feather in her backpack. And when the creature had died, she buried it beside the stream and bid its grave farewell.

After many days of hard travel, Brave Deryn came upon a castle. The people of the town were dressed in mourning, and their keening filled the air. “What’s got everyone so down?” Brave Deryn asked.

A weeping townsman replied, “Our king and queen have died, and the wicked Count Volger has put our beloved Prince Alek beneath a sleeping spell. It can only be broken by the kiss of a person brave and true. The wicked Count has locked Prince Alek up in a mountain tower made of ice and snow. And though a hundred knights have sought to free him, the mountain is too steep and too heavily gaurded! Only one with wings and an army has any hope of saving him.”

Brave Deryn’s heart thundered with the injustice of the prince’s plight, so she set out at once to save him. The tower was just as the townsman had described: a prison of ice and snow perched upon a mountain so steep and slick that Brave Deryn could no more climb it than she could climb a wall of glass. A hundred zepplins hummed through the air, bristling with machine guns and watchful soldiers. At the door of the tower stood a godless walking machine.

But Brave Deryn was not afraid. She took the Huxley’s tentacle from her knapsack, flung it to the ground, and shouted the Huxley’s name. Instantly, a thin, pale shadow slid across the ground toward her. She looked up and saw the Huxley riding on the wind. It waved its tentacles in greeting, and Deryn saw that its missing tentacle had grown back.

"How can I help you, friend?" the Huxley asked.

"There’s a prince that needs saving," Brave Deryn said. "Will you carry me up to that tower?"

"It would be my pleasure," said the Huxley. "But I am afraid I am too frail to keep you from getting shot."

"Don’t worry about that," said Brave Deryn. And so saying, she took the hawk’s feather from her knapsack, flung it to the ground, and shouted the hawk’s name. Instantly, a kettle of hawks filled the sky, thick as a thundercloud. A single hawk fluttered down.

"How can we help you, friend?" the hawk asked.

"There’s a prince that needs saving," Brave Deryn said. "Will you and your kin take out those zepplins with your claws?"

"It would be our pleasure," said the hawk. 

It hurtled back into the sky and spread the word among its brothers and sisters. And as one, the hawks fell upon the zepplins, tearing them to pieces. The soldiers shot at them, but there were so many birds, and all of them so quick, that the machine guns were useless. The zepplins collapsed like great silver clouds, and the soldiers fled. 

Brave Deryn clambered up among the Huxley’s tentacles, and the creature carried her up the mountain. But the higher they climbed, the colder the air became. The Huxley made sounds of distress, but on it flew.

"It’s too cold!" Brave Deryn cried. "Let me down and I’ll climb the rest of the way."

"You did me a great service," said the Huxley. "I wish to do the same for you."

Up and up and up they went. Now both Brave Deryn and the Huxley shivered and felt themselves start to freeze. Again Brave Deryn cried, “It’s too cold! Let me down and I’ll climb the rest of the way.”

But again the Huxley said, “You did me a great service. I wish to do the same for you.”

At last, they reached the mountain summit. The godless walking machine was shuddering to life, swiveling its great guns to face Brave Deryn and her friend. “Up just a little more,” cried the Huxley in a weak voice. They rose until they were above the walking machine. “Good-bye, friend, and thank you!” Brave Deryn called, her heart sick and sad. She leaped from its grasp, pulling her knife as she plummeted. But the Huxley did not answer. It had frozen, and its body drifted down the mountainside. 

The guns of the walking machine were primed to fire. But Brave Deryn aimed her knife — the knife that would never bend or break — for its heart. She cut through the walking machine, top to bottom, splitting its control panel in two. The walking machine shuddered and died, and the three soldiers inside climbed out and surrendered. 

Brave Deryn ran inside the tower and up, up, up to the room where the prince lay sleeping. She shook him, but he would not waken, and only then did she remember that his curse could only be lifted by the kiss of a person with a heart brave and true. Brave Deryn bent over his lovely, sleeping face, crossed her fingers, and pressed her lips to his. Instantly, the prince opened his eyes. And when he saw her, he gasped.

"You!" he said, when Brave Deryn had pulled back. "I dreamed that I would be saved, and here you are. Thanks to you, my kingdom is now safe." He took her hands and kissed them, and Brave Deryn’s stomach knotted in a strange and wonderful way she had never felt before.

"We’ve got to get you back to your kingdom before we can save it," she said. "Come on." They went outside. But the mountain was too steep to descend. "Whatever shall we do?" cried the prince, distraught. But Brave Deryn’s eyes were on the sky; she had a plan.

The hawks had not yet dispersed, and when Brave Deryn and Prince Alek appeared, one floated down to speak with them. “Can we be of help?” it asked, and Brave Deryn said, “Could you carry us down?” The hawk agreed. Brave Deryn fetched an armful of bedsheets from the tower, spread them flat, and hawks gathered the edges up in their beaks. There were enough for Brave Deryn, the prince, and the three soldiers (who the prince said were good men, enscorcelled by the wicked Count Volger). The hawks carried them down the mountain.

Brave Deryn would have thanked them for their service and let them go, but the hawks insisted on returning them to the castle. Brave Deryn agreed, but she would not leave without the body of the Huxley. “He deserves a good burial,” she said. “He was a true friend." 

So the hawks carried them all back to the castle, and at last Brave Deryn saw them off, calling them, too, true friends. “Now come,” said Prince Alek. “I cannot save my kingdom without you.” So they walked, side by side, into the town, where already there were many celebrations — news of the prince’s escape had preceded him.

"Count Volger!" the prince cried. "I would have you answer for your crimes." But the wicked Count had no intention of obeying. He sprinted for a walking machine ready to carry him to safety, firing a pistol at them as he climbed, one-handed, into the Stormwalker. Brave Deryn flung her knife before he could escape, and it caught him between the eyes. The wicked Count fell dead.

And so began the first of a hundred celebrations, to mark the return of the prince, the courage of Brave Deryn and her friends, and the death of the wicked Count. They burned the Count, built a monument to the Huxley, and coronated the prince. Now king, Alek showered Brave Deryn in riches and gave her a high position in his court. Brave Deryn sent for her mother, and King Alek made her a duchess. She married a fat and handsome mechanic with bristling mustaches.

Brave Deryn and King Alek remained very good friends, even after they fell deeply in love and married (which is very good news for the rest of us). And on their wedding day, King Alek presented Brave Deryn with a pair of mechanical wings.

"For my fierce hawk," he said, and kissed her, "with a heart both brave and true."

And so they lived happily ever after.


	4. Circles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #4: Music

"You love that gramophone more than me," Deryn says, winking, teasing. Alek wishes she wouldn’t say those kinds of things.

But when he starts the record, her breath catches, and her eyes go massive. “How—?” she says, and then she’s laughing, arm across her mouth to stifle the sound. He knows what’s tickled her — the memory of a winter night, pausing on the Ringstraße to listen to a band down in someone’s basement, Deryn’s chilly hands (one glove missing, the other full of holes) gripping his, wrenching him into a dance with no name or particular steps, just circles and circles until they stagger into the street, in front of a taxi. The air thickens with the driver’s cursing. Deryn and Alek are apologizing and snickering and giddy and so high on the night and the music and each other that the moment they scramble away from the angry taxi driver, they start spinning again, circles and circles, endless circles.

(Deryn is sick afterward and this is how they figure out they will soon have a newcomer to the family.)

"Clanker magic," says Alek, now, a little smug. Deryn smacks the side of his head, light and affectionate. He takes her hand. "Dance with me?"

"Slowly," says Deryn and looks briefly green. "And pipe down or there’ll be hell to pay."

They both look toward the bedroom where the newcomer sleeps.

"Slowly," agrees Alek, and it is just like that first night, these slow circles, Deryn’s hands warm in his, her lamp-lit smile, such wonderful, endless circles.


	5. Wake Up Call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #5: Good Morning

Though Deryn’s kiss over the Pacific sets a precedent, it is rarely the case in London.

“Oi.” Deryn’s fingers dig into his ribs. Alek recoils, slow as a dying beastie.

“Move your bum.” She climbs onto the bed, knees him in an inappropriate place.

He kicks out, but manages only to snag his toes at an excruciating angle among the blankets. The sound that spurts from him is shrill and undignified. His eyes jerk open.

“That's a good lad,” Deryn says. She’s washed and dressed, positively disgusting.

“Go away,” Alek moans.

She pats her knee. “There’s more where this came from, your Princeliness.”

She kisses her hand to him as she leaves his room, cheeky and gleeful, as though she knows he rather hoped for something else.


	6. Lectures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #6: High School (or College)

Nora Barlow’s young assistants stumble into Dr. Yanev’s lecture thirteen minutes late. They look as though they have been dragged through the nine circles of hell by raging monkeys, pushed down stairs and flung from the tallest of the world’s seven wonders. 

The boffin falters. The other attendees — university students, all — crane their necks. Under the combined force of their eyes, the shorter of two latecomers, Mr. Hohenberg, flushes and bows, stiffly.

"Our apologies," he says. "If you would rather we left—"

"The damage is done," says Yanev, soft so they will not hear the irritation in his voice. "Sit, please."

They sit. The tall boy, Mr. Sharp, promptly falls asleep.

He is still snoring by the time the boffin finishes his lecture. Mr. Hohenberg pinches him for the fifth time, but Mr. Sharp only grunts and shoves him off. Yanev watches the drama from the corner of his eye, as students file past him. He does not understand these protégés of Dr. Barlow’s. Sharp and Hohenberg seem bright enough when they are on time and awake. Between them, they have contributed four or five good ideas, and Nora Barlow vouches for them. Yanev respects the opinion of his fellow boffin. It was she, after all, who arranged for him to teach in London.

He notices Mr. Hohenberg making his way down the aisle. He has left his friend slumped across the chairs. “Yes?” says Yanev.

"I wish to apologize again for our tardiness," the boy says. "Might there be some way that we could make amends?"

"You could tell me what happened." This is probably the wrong thing to say; Yanev does not recall his professors ever caring to hear his excuses. But the boys look ghastly, and the boffin is curious.

Hohenberg’s face works. “We were — there was an incident. In Regent’s Park. A mammothine escaped the zoo. It was… a rather long and difficult chase.”

So.  _That_  explained the distant sounds of catastrophe Yanev had thought he had heard somewhere around dawn.

"I see," he says, though he cannot imagine that there are mammothines escaping every other night, making the boys tardy, keeping them from lectures. 

"We will have to make some other kind of arrangement, I think, Mr. Hohenberg," he says, still in that gentle voice. He is trying to be patient, trying to understand. He is new to teaching, barely out of university himself. He is trying to do this right. "Perhaps if I spoke with Dr. Barlow…"

Mr. Hohenberg blanches. “We don’t mean any disrespect, Dr. Yanev. We truly do wish to continue attending your lectures. Dr. Barlow wishes this as well.”

"I am aware of Dr. Barlow’s wishes," Yanev says. "And rest assured that I would like you and Mr. Sharp to continue attending my lectures. It is simply that I do not think our current arrangement is working. Perhaps another might."

Mr. Hohenberg looks relieved. “That sounds reasonable.”

"Go wake your friend." Yanev ducks his head and begins to stuff lecture notes into his satchel. "I doubt those chairs are comfortable."

He watches Aleksandar Hohenberg make his way back down the aisle. And he wonders about those boys, protégés of a brilliant boffin, chasing rampaging mammothines across Regent’s Park. Saving London. Perhaps dreaming of saving the world.

Oh yes. He wonders.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by ["Scouting for Boys](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1175541)" by psocoptera. I love the idea of seeing how Deryn and Alek's post- _Goliath_ education might progress through the eyes of people who only know them in the context of their studies (and not as a dashing airman and ex-prince!)


	7. Handcuffs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt #7: No Way Out

It is all fun and games -- handcuffing themselves together, attempting to wriggle free, Houdini-style -- until their lunch break ends, and the key breaks in the lock.

Alek blanches. Deryn says, "We can find a hatchet. We'll just search the whole barking zoo."

"Perhaps no one will see us," Alek says.

Deryn snorts. "I doubt that. No way out of this one, your Princeliness. We'll say we were practicing for field work if we run into Dr. Barlow."

"Will she even trust us in the field after this?"

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it," Deryn says. "Come on."

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic]Of Brave Deryn Sharp and Her Beloved Prince](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2249415) by [readbyjela (jelazakazone)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jelazakazone/pseuds/readbyjela)




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